Field
At least one example embodiment of inventive concepts relates to an endoscope system and/or a control method thereof which may be used to examine the inside of an organ or an abdominal cavity.
Description of the Related Art
In general, an endoscope is a medical instrument which is inserted into a human body so that an examiner may examine the inside of an organ (generally, a digestive organ) or an abdominal cavity without an operation or an incision. Early endoscopes were used to simply observe organs within the abdominal cavity of a human body by inserting a thin and long insertion part into the abdominal cavity. Since then, because of development of image processing techniques, images of respective regions within the abdominal cavity of a human body are acquired by a B/W camera, and then lesions at the respective regions may be observed in detail through the acquired images. Further, a color image acquiring device having a high resolution may be substituted for the B/W camera so as to observe lesions in more detail. Further, a chromo endoscope, which photographs the abdominal cavity after dyeing the surface of the abdominal cavity with a specific pigment according to a lesion to be distinguished, may also be used.
As described above, endoscopes have been developed starting from a level providing only a B/W image to a level providing a high-resolution color image or a narrow-band image due to development of image processing techniques.
Such development of endoscopes closely relates to provision of more accurate lesion distinctiveness. Therefore, a 3D endoscope is the most influential as a next generation endoscope technique. Conventional endoscopes provide a 2D image, in which accurate lesion detection may be difficult. For example, detection of a lesion having a similar color to other surrounding tissues but slightly protruding to a height different from the surrounding tissues, may be difficult using only a 2D image. Therefore, research and development is underway for 3D endoscopes capable providing depth information of a photographed region as well as a 2D image.
In order to safely observe a lesion when inserting an endoscope into a digestive organ, such as the esophagus, the stomach, or the large intestine, collision between the endoscope, an object around the endoscope (e.g., the wall of the digestive organ) should be avoided. However, since endoscopes used in current endoscopy provide only a front image captured through an objective lens of a camera mounted at the front end of an insertion part of the endoscope and an examiner (generally, a doctor) operates the endoscope while observing the front image provided from the endoscope, there is a high possibility of collision of the endoscope with the wall of the digestive organ.